Teaching children to tell time is a difficult problem because of the inherent manner in which a clock face is laid out. While with explanation a child can grasp the idea that the little hand moves from one digit to another, thereby indicating the hour of the day, a problem arises in teaching the child that the longer minute hand has an entirely different value relationship to the numbers indicated by it (in comparison to those indicated by the short hand or hour hand).
While many different techniques for teaching time recognition have been proposed, but so far as is known no one has heretofore separated the scale for hour designations from the scale or minute and second designations significantly.
While digital clocks capable of providing a direct readout of hours, minutes (and in some cases even seconds) have now come into general use, there is still widespread use being made of the traditional clock face, so that there remains a strong need for a teaching system which will permit the learning process for time recognition using a conventional clock face to advance towards completion in a minimum amount of time.